In the absence of any large-scale studies measuring illicit prescription drug use among professionals, these results provide a highly suggestive counterpoint to the increasing hysteria over the abuse of "study drugs" by college students. After all, if some professors are doping up before hitting the books, why shouldn't undergrads do the same?
In fact, over the past decade, prescription stimulants such as Adderall and Ritalin—which are typically used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)—have become increasingly available on college campuses. While studies disagree on the prevalence of stimulant "abuse" (that is, non-prescription use) among college students, the numbers suggest that anywhere between five and 15 percent of undergraduates have illicitly used such drugs to improve their academic performance. And while college health officials and various government scolds decry this trend as evidence of "drug abuse" by America's best and brightest, the reality is far from alarming.
Part of the growing concern about stimulants comes from the explosion in legal prescriptions doled out to kids. Between 1993 and 2003 the number of children's doctor's visits resulting in a stimulant prescription jumped from 2.7 million to 6.6 million. Over 10 percent of 10-year-old boys in America are now prescribed some kind of drug to control their unruly behavior, and the average starting age is getting lower. Parents are increasingly told that doping their little ones will make the children happy and successful. In 2000, psychiatrist Peter Breggin testified before Congress that, "Teachers, school psychologists, and administrators commonly make dire threats about their inability to teach children without medicating them." This trend is certainly worrying, not least because the long-term effects of regularly administered stimulants are as yet little understood.
So there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about child doping, particularly given the growing frequency of ADD diagnoses. But what about the strategic use of the same drugs by consenting adults, particularly college students? As usual, the law gets it backwards: While it is perfectly legal to feed—even force feed—Ritalin to a child, unsupervised use by knowledgeable grownups is a crime.
At the same time, it is remarkably easy to score prescription brain drugs at many of America's most prominent universities. A quick survey I conducted of stimulant-using students at Harvard reveals that it's possible to obtain a Ritalin prescription after one 20-minute consultation with a psychiatrist. One student, a sophomore who wishes to remain anonymous, obtained a script for amphetamine salts after just two appointments. He's pretty sure he doesn't have ADD, and he definitely never lied about or exaggerated his symptoms, which featured insomnia more prominently than the ADD hallmark of distractibility. Yet his psychiatrist readily prescribed the drugs. "It's not as if there's some medical authority making this decision for you," he told me afterwards. "Any reasonably capable person could walk out of there with just about whatever [drug]."
Still, there is widespread alarm about the possible health problems arising from unsupervised dosing. "Put the pills in the wrong hands and the results can be dangerous," NBC News warned. Henry Chung, Director of the New York University Student Health Center has warned that, "Students may have some kind of manic reaction or a seizure that could occur from taking these medications." For high doses, Chung is correct. But today's performance-enhancing undergraduates exhibit more responsibility than Chung realizes. One NYU senior I spoke to says it's mainly a case of "every now and again for finals. I don't know anyone who abuses Adderall or Ritalin." Moreover, "because they're prescription you can find out so much about them so you know how you can take it safely."
There is also the claim that student dopers—like testosterone-injecting athletes—are cheating because college is a competitive environment in which participants are obliged to play fair. Of course, this argument ignores the fact that most of the abilities being enhanced by such drugs are already unequally distributed (due to a mixture of biological and socioeconomic factors). Why is doping to achieve "normal" functionality a permissible act for ADD sufferers, but wrong for those seeking better grades or greater knowledge?
As the Nature survey suggests, responsible and successful adults dope up for a variety of professional reasons. There is no evidence that student doping is more dangerous or widespread than that done by their professors. Yet many university authorities are nonetheless determined to close Pandora's box. Unlike their Harvard counterparts, for example, students at the University of Michigan typically have to go through $1000 worth of psychometric tests before psychiatrists are willing to prescribe them any neuro-enhancing drugs. And doctors, of course, are loath to relinquish their power over patients.
It's time for such authority figures to admit that performance-enhancing drugs are already part of everyday life for a great many rational, healthy adults and that their use can no longer be dismissed under the title of "abuse" or "cheating."
Juliet Samuel is a writer living in Boston.
The post Triumph of the Pill appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The book is chick lit. Rajaa Alsanea's first novel, Girls of Riyadh, was only recently published in English by Penguin, but its 2005 debut in the Middle East sparked a storm of controversy. The pro-gay Iranian organization Homan praises "al-Sanie's frank and sometimes shocking insight into the closed world of Saudi women" for "making waves," while London's Independent calls the novel "revealing, hilarious and chilling in turn." Meanwhile, fundamentalists condemned the novel for contravening Shariah law. Alsanea, now a 25-year-old dental student at the University of Chicago (though she plans to return to Saudi Arabia), says she simply wrote about the people she saw around her. She has also received a supportive call from the Saudi royal family.
The book describes the sex and shopping habits of four rich Saudi girls. A contemporary epistolary novel, it's written as a series of emails to a Yahoo! listserv by a mysterious Arab woman. In another world, it would be a trivial lip-gloss narrative of life as a desirable young woman. But in Saudi Arabia, such a story can't avoid being political. Alsanea explores her culture's values in all their mundane invasiveness; this is a world where possessing a Nutty Professor DVD invites social disgrace. Beyond the picayune restrictions lies hypocrisy: The elites enforce a strict dress code at home, then change into chic Western attire on the plane out of Riyadh.
In an atmosphere where every act is politicized and convention always trumps personal preference, human relations are reduced to envy and power play. That makes chick lit the ideal genre for critiquing Saudi society. A friend's wedding is not just a celebration but a political battleground. While one character, Sadeem, garners praise for her help in planning the wedding party (which displays a suitable wifely quality), the more liberal Michelle draws "sharp looks" for refusing to cover up when the men enter. It's a lot like the world of the Gossip Girl novels—backbiting, gossip, and jealousy—only the stakes in Riyadh are higher: not high school popularity but marriage and lifelong prosperity. Still, the basic accoutrements—handbags and husbands—are the same.
Hushed-up nose jobs in Lebanon, makeup tips, modest robes tailored to show off curves, and designer-label hijabs are all part of the game that decides a girl's future. And even after the thumbprint is on the marriage contract (women aren't allowed to sign), the woes aren't over. How long, for example, is it appropriate to make one's husband wait for sex? One night after the wedding? Seven? Which unspoken code of behavior might be governing his actions, and will he punish you if you're wrong? Navigating this maze of requirements could mean the difference between divorce—and thereafter possible confinement to the house—and a tolerable lifestyle.
It's hardly surprising, then, that courtship often takes the form of a materialist status race. Alsanea's characters expect a lot from their guys: money, height, prestige, culture, Barry Manilow–singing teddy bears, diamonds on Valentine's Day, affectionate notes stuck on the fridge. The guys, who range from weak-minded puppets of familial authority to abusive cheaters and pathologically suspicious control freaks, always disappoint. Flirting, officially forbidden, struggles through a variety of tortured avenues—instant messaging, flashing your phone number through a tinted window, the occasional covert café meet-up.
Despite her criticisms, Alsanea is cautious, which is probably why her book has received support as well as censure. None of the novel's main characters really defies her family; most find livable compromises. Alsanea has argued that change won't be achievable without a degree of respect for tradition. "There are a lot of people who want change in Saudi Arabia, but they're not succeeding," she told Newsweek, "because they're not going through the right channels, or they're not doing it gradually. They're just screaming, 'We want this change and we want it now.'?"
In that sense, Girls of Riyadh can seem disappointingly unrevolutionary. But it's a striking exposé of a social malaise, and it has launched hundreds of debates in a country where free expression is rare. An apparently shallow medium—the chick lit novel—turns out to be a fitting place to start the discussion.
Juliet Samuel was Reason's 2007 Burton Gray memorial intern.
The post Much Ado About Shopping appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>A clean French driving license starts with 12 points. Those points can be lost for various driving offenses until, at zero, drivers get a six-month suspension and are required to retake the driving test. Increasingly harsh enforcement of road laws has led to the growth of a black market in license points, which sell on ebay.fr for between $137 and $1,645 each. Those who don't drive much, or who rarely speed, sell their points to those whose jobs or needs depend on their car; the seller just sends in her name and license number in place of the buyer's when a ticket is issued.
Participants in the black market have standards, though. One seller told Le Parisien he doesn't sell his points to just anyone: "I always ask to see a photo of the ticket. I would never sell my points to road hogs."
The practice began in Spain, but it spread to France after a surge in crackdowns on speeding that started in 2003, while Sarkozy was minister of the interior. Jean Philippe Coin, a motoring lawyer in Paris, says the sheer weight of numbers leaves the government helpless: "There is no checking. There is no control." He claims that, with the number of penalties imposed rising dramatically—80,000 licenses were confiscated last year, and 200,000 are expected to be revoked this year—the authorities are simply unable to keep up, so the black market takes over.
The post Speed for Sale appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with healthcare consortium Kaiser Permanente have found a great new way to fight childhood obesity: the Amazing Food Detective. The computer game, released last week, features ten "case files" of unhealthy children—click on each prisoner-style mug shot and you proceed to help a fat child make a healthy choice. The solution to chubby 12-year-old Emily's dilemma is to install a security camera to catch and stop her eating at home (After all, "Those large portions were quite suspicious!"); little Cole has to learn that he can only eat raw carrots and bananas because, "Healthy snacks are the way to go!" And the game comes complete with a time-out after 20 minutes: "You should take a break and do something active, like 100 pushups!" Gee whiz-that sounds fun!
And medical professionals are on the same bandwagon. "Our doctors have the same superstitions that everyone else has," Waan says. "They act on them in ways that are not scientific." It's not difficult to find serious grievances from fat patients. On one recently started blog, First, Do No Harm, a woman with Cushing's Syndrome, a muscle-wasting disease that turns muscle to fat, says she was told that she just needed to go on a diet.
In response, fat people are mobilizing. The "fat pride" or "fat acceptance" movement might provoke the scorn of skinnies, but it is growing in number and makes a compelling case. Much of the organizing takes place online, where fat people shares stories of abuse, gripe about prejudicial scientific studies and debate the finer points of weight discrimination. Some groups, like one started by Waan often delve directly into activism, with members urging one another to write complaints about discriminatory food advertisements or boycott insensitive organizations. Other groups are simply about offering mutual support. SeaFATtle, a group started by activist Mary McGhee, began simply as a way for fat women to swim together without fear of catcalls.
Admittedly, agitating through a fat women's swimming club might not be the best way to attract serious attention. But the claims fat pride puts forward aren't so unreasonable: The movement holds that the nation's "public health crisis" isn't really about health at all. It's about bad science and intolerance.
Listen to any public health official and you'd think obesity was a scientific slam dunk, but studies on the exact causes and effects of weight gain are highly ambiguous. One study of 25,000 men by The Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research, for example, found that a fit fatso is actually healthier than a sedentary skinny: over an eight year period even those technically classified as "obese" (a BMI of over 30) were less likely to die from heart attacks, strokes and cancer than inactive people of normal weight. And many of the studies released as "proof" of America's impending death by gristle fail to take into account confounding variables, like yo-yo dieting, a sedentary lifestyle and fat distribution on the body.
But even if the science were sound, public officials and anti-fat crusaders still confuse bad health with moral depravity. Paul Campos, a law professor at Colorado University and author of The Obesity Myth, claims that this "moral panic" sticks because it finds an "ideological resonance." On the right it appeals to an ascetic attitude; on the left it taps into anxieties about capitalist over-consumption and manipulative force-feeding by corporations.
Unfortunately, the "obesity crisis" has real victims. At 500 pounds, Gary Sticklaufer was judged too fat to make a good adoptive father to his own cousin—despite having adopted and raised several other children without problems. His cousin was forcibly taken from his care. Meanwhile, fat women are regularly told by their doctors that to become pregnant would be irresponsible, despite a lack of medical evidence demonstrating a higher risk for overweight women. And in the UK it's now commonplace to raise concerns over fat children with a view to placing them in foster care. In short, cutting a slim figure is now a moral imperative for responsible parenting, and those who refuse the "cure" to this aesthetic "disease" are summarily punished.
The anti-obesity campaign is waging war against the very people it purports to help and, in doing so, undermines the very medical authorities it relies on to perpetuate the crisis. Fat people are tired of being patronized by politicians, mistreated by doctors and barraged by crises and "cures." Many, like Big Fat Blog writer Paul Macaleer have simply concluded that, "A lot of people don't like fat people." And hard as it may be to accept, many fat people don't want to be "helped" by quack dieticians, misguided doctors, and opportunist politicians. Most, in fact, just want to be left alone.
Juliet Samuel was reason's 2007 Burton Gray memorial intern.
The post Fat Pride World Wide appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>It's probably not a situation you'd associate with Bridget Jones, but the book in question is self-proclaimed "chick lit"—albeit with a very political bent. Rajaa Alsanea's first novel, Girls of Riyadh, was only released this month in English, but its 2005 debut in the Middle East sparked both a storm of controversy and a flurry of new literature in Arabia. For months after its publication, conservative Muslims condemned the novel as contravening Shariah law, calling for a government crackdown on its distribution. But the book's popularity continued to spread, even while some critics tried to dismiss its success as a product of Alsanea's feminine wiles: "Rajaa has the looks, and so even when the product, i.e. the novel, is bad it sells and is selling like hot cakes," one disgruntled man told Arab News.
Alsanea's looks don't explain the flurry of debate, news and editorializing it has provoked (reportedly over 250 articles): The Iranian organization Homan claimed that "al-Sanie's frank and sometimes shocking insight into the closed world of Saudi women is making waves," while London's Independent newspaper called it "revealing, hilarious and chilling in turn." It has even become the subject of litmus-test questions in job interviews, and Alsanea herself received a supportive call from the Saudi royal family.
Much ado about a book on the love lives, sex and shopping habits of four rich Saudi girls. A modern epistolary novel, it's written as a series of emails sent to a Yahoo! group list serve by a mysterious, lipstick-wearing Saudi woman. In another world, it would be a trivial lip gloss narrative of life as a desirable young woman in Riyadh. But such a story can't avoid being political—and it turns out that chick lit is a convenient vantage point from which to critique Saudi society. Alsanea explores Saudi values in all their mundane invasiveness; this is a world where possessing The Nutty Professor on DVD is a political act, inviting social disgrace. And beyond the picayune restrictions lies blatant hypocrisy: the Saudi elites enforce dressing conventions at home and happily change into chic Western attire on the plane out of Riyadh.
Details form the basis of Alsanea's careful criticism: In an atmosphere where every action is politicized, and where convention always trumps personal preference, human relations are reduced to envy and power play-which makes chick lit the ideal genre in which to discuss such problems. A friend's wedding is not just a celebration, but a political battleground. While one character, Sadeem, garners praise for her help in planning the party (a suitable wifely quality), the more liberal Michelle draws "sharp looks" for refusing to cover up when the men enter. In short, this feminine world is a one straight out of Mean Girls-backbiting gossip, jealousy and personal politics-only the stakes in Riyadh are higher. It's not a question of high school popularity, but marriage and lifelong prosperity. Yet the basic tools-handbags and husbands-are the same.
The prose stays mostly light, even gratingly so at times. Hushed-up nose jobs in Lebanon, makeup tips, modest robes tailored to show off curves and designer-label hijabs are all part of the bitchy game that decides a girl's future. And even once the thumbprint is on the marriage contract (women aren't allowed to sign), the woes aren't over: How long, for example, is it appropriate to make one's husband wait for sex? One night after the wedding? Seven? Which unspoken code of behavior might be governing his actions, and will he punish you if you're wrong? Navigating this maze of requirements could mean the different between divorce—and thereafter possible confinement to the house—and a tolerable lifestyle.
It's hardly surprising, then, that courtship often manifests as a materialist status race. Alsanea expects a lot of her guys: money, height, prestige, culture, Barry Manilow-singing teddy bears, diamonds on Valentines Day, affectionate notes stuck on the fridge, and so on. And from the weak-minded puppets of familial authority, to abusive cheaters and pathologically suspicious control-freaks, the guys always disappoint. Flirting, officially forbidden, struggles through a variety of tortured avenues-instant messaging, "numbering" girls through tinted windows (that is, publicly displaying one's cell number in the hopes of getting a call), and the occasional covert café meet-up.
Despite her criticisms, Alsanea is cautious, which is probably why her book has received much support as well as censure. None of the book's main characters ever truly defy their families; most instead find livable compromises. And Alsanea is a moderate when it comes to method; she says that change is unachievable without a degree of respect for tradition: "There are a lot of people who want change in Saudi Arabia but they're not succeeding," she told Newsweek, "because they're not going through the right channels, or they're not doing it gradually. They're just screaming, 'We went this change and we want it now.'"
In that sense, Girls of Riyadh can seem disappointingly un-revolutionary. But it's a useful exposé of a social malaise—a community stranglehold so tight that it poisons individual relations and imbues personal decisions with intense social meaning. Which, to any Clueless fans, ("Why should I listen to you, anyway? You're a virgin who can't drive") makes chick lit a fitting place to start the discussion.
Juliet Samuel is reason's 2007 Burton Gray memorial intern.
The post Much Ado About Shopping appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>He thought it was a bit of a laugh, but Peterborough City Council failed to see the funny side of David Pratt's T-shirt. He has been threatened with a £80 penalty notice after wearing a top with the slogan: "Don't piss me off! I am running out of places to hide the bodies." After an official complaint was made to the council, street wardens told Mr Pratt his T-shirt could cause offence or incite violence. He faces an on-the-spot fine from the police if he wears it again.
And he's not the only one. The article goes on to list a bunch of objects that were censored by police, mostly after complaints by nosy members of the public: A toddler's t-shirt with the word "sperm" on it; a pub sign featuring the word "faggot;" and an fcuk (French Connection U.K.) t-shirt picturing a copulating couple:
Using threatening, abusive, or insulting language is a criminal offence under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, even if it's printed on a T-shirt. This applies in England and Wales, in Scotland such an incident would be classed as breach of the peace, says the Law Society of Scotland.
It is not necessary for someone to have made an official complaint for the police to act, they just have to think it might offend a hypothetical third party, says criminal solicitor Louise Christian.
The post My T-Shirt Went to Peterborough and All I Got Was an £80 Fine appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>In the last few months, bottled water — generally considered a benign, even beneficial, product — has been increasingly portrayed as an environmental villain by city leaders, activist groups and the media. The argument centers not on water, but oil. It takes 1.5 million barrels a year just to make the plastic water bottles Americans use, according to the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, plus countless barrels to transport it from as far as Fiji and refrigerate it. …
Dave Byers, 65, from Silver Spring, Md., discussed the issue with his wife, Pat, on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a 90-degree Saturday. "I think it should be banned, actually," he said of bottled water.
The US currently uses 20 million barrels of oil per day. First we're going to ban plastic bags, slicing away a giant 0.16% of that consumption. Now, bring on the plastic bottle ban, slashing a full 0.02% from the oil guzzling. Take that, global warming!
The post Every Little Bit Helps… Right? appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Global sales have risen from 287 million bottles in 2002 to 321 million in 2006. They are likely to reach 330 million this year, with exports to Russia growing by 39 percent, to China by 50 percent and to India by 125 percent. But only 32,600 hectares of vineyards are authorised to produce the black grapes for champagne.
Experts say that the maximum number of bottles to be wrung out of the land is 350 million – and many even doubt whether this can be attained. They say that the region's grapes are already being pushed to the limit as owners await official approval to plant more vines in 2017.
Of course, one solution is to just buy the same product with a different name. Since 1990, an E.U. law has forbidden any wine producer not from the Champagne region in France from using the name for their goods (and it tries hard to insist its trading partners abide by the rule). After all, if consumers can't be trusted to tell French champagne from trashy foreign stuff, they obviously need the government to help them. Perhaps what we're really facing is a semantics shortage.
The post A Glass By Any Other Name… appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The mandatory arrest laws were intended to impose a cost on abusers. But because of psychological, emotional and financial ties that often keep victims loyal to their abusers, the cost of arrest is easily transferred from abusers to victims. Victims want protection, but they do not always want to see their partners put behind bars.
In some cases, victims may favor an arrest, but fear that their abusers will be quickly released. And many victims may avoid calling the police for fear that they, too, will be arrested for physically defending themselves. The possibility of such "dual arrests" is most worrisome for victims who have children at home.
The problem with a law like this is that it regards all individual victims of domestic violence as a collective underclass that needs to be forcibly "saved" in any way the state deems fit. Undoubtedly resources and information should be available to victims, but blanket rules like this treat them as voiceless prey rather than human beings with their own priorities and knowledge of the situation. Any law that fails to take the victim's wishes into account when dealing with a risk that affects them is bound to run into problems.
Via IWF blog Inkwell.
The post Ignoring the Victim appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The NYT wrote yesterday of a rising trend of illegal substance use, outlawed by the FDA for twenty years, but used by half a million people in the U.S. The product is raw milk—straight from the udder, just as the cow intended. Currently, most milk in the U.S. is pasteurized, which involves heating it to temperatures at which nasty bacteria (E. coli, salmonella, etc) break down, then cooling it down again and bottling it up. According to raw milk drinkers, the process gets rid of its "rich" taste and beneficial bacteria. But it's often the only legal way to buy and sell milk:
While its sale for human consumption is illegal in 15 states, New York is one of 26 where it can be bought with restrictions. The chief one is that raw milk can only be sold on the premises of one of 19 dairy farms approved by the state. Clandestine milk clubs, like the one Mr. Milgrom-Elcott joined, are one way of circumventing the law, and there are others.
And the market is growing:
In 2000, the Organic Pastures Dairy Company in the San Joaquin Valley near Fresno became California's first raw milk dairy with certified organic pasture land. This year its co-founder, Mark McAfee, expects it to gross $6 million — up from $4.9 last year.
It's legal within California, but the only way to ship it across states lines without inciting the FDA's wrath is to label it as pet food. Admittedly, despite its "natural" appeal, raw milk might not be perfectly healthy ("In 1938, for example, milk caused 25 percent of all outbreaks of food- and water-related sickness"), but it's hardly the FDA's place to snatch bottles of milk from the hands of full-grown adults.
The post The Milk Club appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>But it was the CIA pinching their applicants that was the final straw:
"One of the things we came to realize was that our drug policy was largely out of step with the rest of the intelligence community and much of the law enforcement community," said Jeffrey J. Berkin, deputy assistant director of the FBI's security division, which implemented the new guidelines. "We're going to focus less on a hard number and more on a whole-person approach… The new policy just allows us a little more flexibility than the old policy."
The new rules merely require applicants to have avoided cannabis in the last three years and everything else in the last ten, which is a marginally more sensible policy than the previous one:
Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates looser restrictions on marijuana use, called the policy change "a small step towards sanity" by the FBI.
"What it really does reflect is a reality that lots and lots of people in this society have used marijuana—some of them have used it a fair amount—and have gone on to become capable and effective citizens," Mirken said. "Are we really going to stop all those folks from serving our country?"
The post FBI Takes "A Small Step Toward Sanity" appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The measure, which 19 of the 51 council members have signed onto, was prompted in part by the frequent use of the word in hip-hop music. Ten rappers were cited in the legislation, along with an excerpt from an 1811 dictionary that defined the word as "A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman."
While the bill also bans the slang word "ho," the b-word appears to have acquired more shades of meaning among various groups, ranging from a term of camaraderie to, in a gerund form, an expression of emphatic approval. Ms. Mealy acknowledged that the measure was unenforceable, but she argued that it would carry symbolic power against the pejorative uses of the word. Even so, a number of New Yorkers said they were taken aback by the idea of prohibiting a term that they not only use, but do so with relish and affection.
Cast your mind back to December 2006 when Katherine Mangu-Ward listed all the things the New York City Council tried to ban that year.
The post It's Called <i>Doublespeak</i>, Bitch appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The kangaroos would be herded into a padded pen and sedated, then shot with a paintball gun to mark them as ready for transport. They would be released in a fenced area covered with shadecloth, the report by the Wildcare protection group for the Defence Department said.
At A$3,600 a head, the cost of moving each animal is more than a standard economy class return air ticket from Sydney to London on Qantas, the national carrier which features a kangaroo on its tail.
The post More Money Than Sense appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>"This is a cynical exercise of power, a slap in the face to the judiciary and a dangerous precedent," was how Stephen Estcourt, the President of the Australian Bar Association, put it to BBC News, making little attempt to conceal his disgust.
Perversely, the case could lead to a strengthening of police powers. The cops found themselves most inconvenienced by the need to cart Haneef to court every few days for permission to keep him locked up, so they're looking to avoid the hassle in future:
This legal to-ing and fro-ing, claims Clive Williams, a counter-terrorism expert at Macquarie University, has actually undermined public confidence in the anti-terror laws.
"Every time they went to court, there was all this publicity, and that put enormous pressure on the police. In Britain it's much easier, when suspects just disappear into Paddington Green [police station in London]. The Australian system is a real pig's ear."
Williams wants the police to have more powers—namely the same 28-day power of detention that British bobbies have. That way, it will be easier for the government to avoid dealing with the damnable free press.
The post Those Troublesome "Rights" Things appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>ITV responded [to the ban] by scrapping new commissions and long-running hits, including My Parents Are Aliens. Drama repeats have replaced children's programmes on ITV1 at teatime as the channel competes for ratings with [the more trashy] Channel 4.
Children now have to suffer through endless re-runs of Australian soaps and sappy dramas–thus avoiding the perils of junk food ads, but only at the cost of their "cognitive, linguistic, emotional and social development." So the government doesn't mind dimwit kids, as long as they're not fat.
The answer, of course, is legislation. Presenters of children's TV programs, and other such experts, want regulation to make sure broadcasters keep a minimum amount of kids' TV around. And some subsidies thrown in for fun.
The post The Latest Peril for Kids: Lack of TV appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>But while paternalists celebrated a triumph for public health, environmentalists mourned a tragedy for the Earth. As it turns out, when smoking is not allowed in heated, enclosed areas, businesses invest in heating the great outdoors for their puffing patrons. Gas-guzzling patio heater use is predicted to double in the UK, increasing CO2 emissions (perhaps by 20,000 tons a year just for London) and breeding mosquitoes.
Patio heaters can use as much gas in six months as the average U.K. stove does in a year. They're therefore fairly expensive to run. But the smoking ban has made outdoor heating more profitable than ever before, particularly since only some venues can afford them or have any outdoor space. The heaters become a draw for smokers and their friends.
Both London Mayor Ken Livingstone and Norman Baker, a U.K. Liberal Democrat Party MP, have spoken out against patio heaters. Baker claims that "patio heaters are an absurd invention. It is ludicrous that people are trying to heat the open air, as well as being irresponsible in the light of the climate change challenge we face." He says that instead of relying on such ridiculous modern technology, people should just put on more clothes if they're cold.
And if they refuse to wrap up, the only solution is another ban–this time on patio heaters.
The post If You Try to Sit, I'll Ban your Seat; If You Get Too Cold, I'll Ban the Heat appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The initiative follows from San Francisco's ban on plastic for all supermarkets and big-chain pharmacies (the ban currently exempts all small, independent retailers and thus passes on costs mostly to the poorest consumers). Apparently, plastic bags are an environmental nuisance because people insist on throwing them into the sea, where they kill fish and other marine life. And they won't rot away for a millennium.
The anti-plastic movement has also inspired a fashion craze: ugly hemp bags (greener than plastic AND paper!). Most recently the fad saw hordes of "light greens" lining up around the block at Whole Foods to buy $15 designer bags emblazoned with the statement, "I'm NOT a plastic bag":
The greatest irony of the morning was as a result of the ongoing torrential rain. Upon leaving the store, after hours in the downpour, proud owners placed their prized new bags into Whole Foods plastic bags to keep them dry.
Enter the Progressive Bag Alliance, an organization of three plastic bag manufacturers founded to promote responsible plastic bag use (that is, in favor of no plastic bag use). The Alliance claims that the anti-plastic movement has ignored some important facts about the beloved paper they will require stores to supply. So they've started selling their own rival to the hemp craze on eBay: "I AM a plastic bag and I'm 100% recyclable":
Myth: Paper grocery bags are a better environmental choice than plastic bags.
Fact: Plastic bags use 40% less energy to produce and generate 70% less emissions & 80% less solid waste than paper. (U.S. EPA website, www.epa.gov/region1/communities/shopbags.html)
Myth:Plastic grocery bags take 1,000 years to decompose in landfills.
Fact: Today's landfills are designed to prevent decomposition of anything. Chances are your orange peel, milk carton and even last year's newspaper won't breakdown. Research by William Rathje, who runs the Garbage Project, has shown that when excavated from a landfill, newspapers from the 1960s can be intact and readable.
The post Plastic Bag Panic Grips the Nation appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Drivers pay 2.5 Danish crowns (46 cents) per day. In return they get annual coverage of up to $1855 for four speeding and four parking tickets. And again, it's a case of drivers uniting against the state:
The idea, [insurance company] Fartklubben founder Poul Winther told Danish daily Politiken, is not to give Danes license to put the pedal to the metal, but rather to protect motorists from over-zealous traffic cops.
"We're a solidarity club where each member is jointly liable for one another," he said. "We believe that photo speed traps and parking companies have become pure money machines."
The government could respond by lowering incentives to use such insurance, i.e. reducing penalties for speeding or getting control of its traffic cops. More likely, they'll go for Option 2: make speeding insurance illegal.
The post What Every Sensible Driver Needs: Speeding Insurance appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The injustice has spurred the masses to action, and congressmen all over the state are getting earfuls from furious constituents threatening to vote them out unless they repeal the fines. Drivers are particularly angry since the rise in fines is a simple money-raising matter.
"Criminal and civil penalties shouldn't be created for raising money," Mr. Marshall said, adding that constituents had stopped him on the street and even in the post office and called his office to voice frustration with the new fines. "You don't want to turn our police into gun-toting tax collectors. They're supposed to be officers of the peace, nothing else." …
Clay Morad, a driver in Arlington who signed the petition [against the fines], said: "There are other ways to get these road projects done. I'd be more than willing to pay an extra dollar per year in taxes to avoid having to worry about getting a $2,500 fine for going above the speed limit."
The petition is probably one of the best recent examples of mass action against the state, which says it only introduced the fines because raising taxes was too politically difficult. Maybe they should take a hint.
A couple of weeks ago, Radley Balko looked at the dubious delegate behind the fines.
The post Don't Pick on the Drivers appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>This week they are standing trial for "insulting Turkishness," with the possibility of an 18 month jail sentence if convicted. That seems unlikely, however:
There's been little public discussion about the wisdom of prosecuting the punk band. Turkish prosecutors routinely file defamation complaints, creating a glut of cases, some of which never go to trial.
So the whole case is a tiresome and wasteful use of government resources—if Turkey keeps it up, its prospects for EU membership look better than ever. (via Shoutmouth)
The post Feeling the Angst? A Year in Jail Should Help. appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The government has come up with a foolproof solution: Have every woman register her pregnancy with the government so they'll know about any illegal abortions. Unfortunately, it's yet to explain how it will enforce the plan, nor what incentives women could possibly have for registering (via Feministing):
Some activists said the government's plan to create a pregnancy register in a country of 1.1 billion people–where more than 50 percent of women deliver children at home without medical assistance–was unrealistic.
"We cannot give elementary health services in a satisfactory way to most of our citizens, and to talk about registering pregnancies is ridiculous," said Alok Mukhopadhyay, head of the Voluntary Health Association of India.
What is it with the recent fad in baby-registering?
Kerry Howley blogged the deficit in German baby production last year.
The post If It Moves, Register It! appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Edmunds has presided over the Island, known locally as Rapa Nui, for 15 years, and his proclamations about 'his people' have the air of a tin-pot dictator growing increasingly detached. The Island, totaling just 63 square miles, lies 2,200 miles west of Chile in the middle of Pacific Ocean, but modern technology has dispensed with its former isolation, and Edmunds is concerned. "There's something we need to keep, to protect'"that is, the magic of this island… the people being lovable and friendly," he told me, leaning back under a painting of a mighty Rapa Nui tribesman. "I grew up on an island where selfishness didn't exist."
This would-be kinglet boasts that he can trace his own ancestry back to one of the centuries-old stone heads, or moai, on the island, and he's determined that any changes to come will happen only under the auspices of "a master plan." Asked if he thinks such a plan can possibly please everyone, he laughs: "My dear, we can never satisfy people."
Yet change, unplanned and unregulated, has come to Easter Island. Tourism has skyrocketed over the last decade, and an island of 3,800 inhabitants now hosts 50,000 visitors a year. Souvenir shops, tour companies, and guesthouses have popped up, and where there were two taxis ten years ago, there are now 150. The Island's only town, Hanga Roa, has been transformed.
Edmunds is not alone in his nostalgia for economic isolation. Francisco Hochstetter, Director of the local Archeological Museum, feels that tourism and an influx of Chilean immigrants have left Rapa Nui's culture less "authentic" than it was decades back. "They are confusing [the culture]," he says of Rapa Nui's younger inhabitants.
Outsiders too are troubled by development on Rapa Nui. Last year, when local businessman Petero Riraroko announced a plan to build a casino on the Island, The New York Times called the plan the "latest in a long series of calamities"'"thus equating the casino with the slave trade and various epidemics that cut the Island's population down to only 111 people in 1877. Longwinded travelogues, like one published in The Condé Nast Traveler, exoticize the Island and its inhabitants as an "archaeological trove, object lesson in eco-disaster, remoteness incarnate." The Boston Globe worries that Rapa Nui's language is being lost as the Island modernizes.
But all this hand-wringing mistakes culture for some kind of communal public good to be molded and preserved for later use. The people of Rapa Nui seem to have chosen a different future: Every day, contra to Edmunds' apparent desires, they select engagement and profit over tradition. Young people I spoke to on the Island grow restless with its isolation, welcome tourist cash and relish their growing communication with different societies.
As outsiders fret about their cultural heritage, Easter Islanders are opening guest houses and tourism centers. Hanga Roa now offers visitors horse-riding, scuba diving, jeep and bike rentals, souvenirs and a range of restaurants and guesthouses. And with the expansion of The Explora luxury hotel chain onto the Island, and substantial refurbishments in the Hanga Roa Hotel, businesses are looking to attract guests with more spending power than the cheapskate backpacking crowd. Hucke Gerardo Radolfo, who mans a fruit stall in the local market, puts it simply: "Tourists are good for the Island because they bring cash."
More than New York Times editorializing stands between Rapa Nui's people and economic success. Riraroko, the businessman who tried to bring a casino to the island, was thwarted by Chilean gambling regulation. Yet even before the plan was rejected, a counter-casino movement was being roused by globalization skeptics, who didn't want to hear about its potential benefits for islanders. Riraroko says the project would have created 500 jobs and $2 million in tax revenue for Chile, which already allocates that amount to the Island annually. "So the Island lost $2 million," he concludes, with a shrug.
Paradoxically, the island needs this kind of money to protect its culture and invest in its future. Rapa Nui's tourism industry relies entirely on the allure of the hundreds of maoi that dot the Island, relics of an ancient tribal culture. The moai are currently owned by Chile, and administrated by the Chilean National Forestry Corporation (CONAF), but CONAF's local Acting Provincial Chief, Ignacio Espina, claims that he simply does not have enough government money or manpower to look after the sites. The very heritage sites some say are threatened by development need upkeep, and upkeep costs money.
As Rapa Nui develops, Mayor Edmunds is likely to grow even more dissatisfied with the island's forward tilt. But if Rapa Nui's entrepreneurs are permitted to trade and engage, they're sure to reject his "master plan"'"and they may even find the cash to save a bit of the culture Edmunds is nostalgic for.
Juliet Samuel is the 2007 Burton Gray memorial intern for reason.
Discuss this article online.
The post Easter Island Fights Prosperity appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>As in many European countries, French drivers start with a total of 12 license points, which they lose for various driving offenses. Getting to zero means an automatic six-month driving ban. During Sarko's reign as Minister of the Interior, he introduced 1,000 more speed cameras across France in a frenzied law and order "crackdown." There are particularly harsh punishments even for mild speeding (under 20kph over the limit)– two points a pop.
But the crackdown has rather misfired: Drivers now see the penalties as universally unfair, and have started a market in license points. Those still with relatively clean records (close to 12 points) sell their points online for 300-1500 euros each to drivers in danger of a suspension. The seller then sends in her license number and name in place of the guilty party, and takes the rap. And the sheer number of cases makes it impossible to check who's who:
Officials acknowledge that the state is swamped with the administration of automatic fines. The Interior Ministry said that it carries out spot checks. "For example, suspicion will be raised if an 84-year-old grandmother is snapped at 200 kph (160mph) at five on a Sunday morning near a nightclub," he told le Parisien newspaper.
Jean-Baptise Iosca, a lawyer who specialises in motoring cases, said that the borrowing and buying of license points now touched every social class. "I have clients coming to see me after losing not only all their own points but also 12 from their grandmother and all their grandfather's," he said.
The solution? Another crackdown. Ex-PM de Villepin began a 20 million Euro investigation to stamp out fraudulent point-claiming, but it has yet to release any findings or suggest any action.
(Thanks to Sahil Mahtani for the tip.)
The post New Markets in Speed appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The association board notified Beth Hammer in an April 24 letter that the flag display is against federal flag code and is in violation of the association's "patriotic and political expression policy."
The letter gave her a week to right the flag or face fines that appear to range from $25 to $500.
"Living in a community association offers many advantages to the homeowner, but at the same time, imposes some restrictions," said the letter signed by association manager Melissa Keithly.
Having consulted the federal flag code, Hammer raised up her flag upside-down to indicate the official call of "distress" as a protest against the Iraq war. But this gated community won't stand for such "unpatriotic" displays. An embarrassing climb-down on the part of the community board seems likely, but not without the expense and inconvenience of Hammer hiring herself a lawyer.
The post Gated Community, Gated Speech appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Firms are enticing miners to take HIV/AIDS tests by offering prizes, sending mobile treatment units to the bush where sex workers operate and blanketing the region with condoms.
For instance, Gold Fields gives each miner who takes an HIV/AIDS test a lottery ticket, offering monthly prizes of cell phones, televisions and cash, plus a final sweepstake where one worker wins a new pick-up truck.
…
BHP Billiton—the world's largest mining company—said for every dollar it invests in HIV training, education and medical programs the return is four-fold in terms of benefits such as re-training, absenteeism and productivity.
…
"When we started our HIV program we didn't wait for any government to say yes or no, if there is a risk for an organization we take appropriate action."
For years, activists have been calling on governments and the UN to spread awareness and treatment. It looks like business could instead be the source of more effective and efficient efforts against the epidemic.
Steve Chapman pointed out the idiocy of government needle policy and AIDS, while Ronald Bailey has looked at the progress made (and yet to come) in developing AIDS treatments.
The post Take an AIDS test—Win a Pickup Truck!!! appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>"I looked the officer right in the eye and said, 'You've got to be kidding. I have to go to court on this?' And he said, 'Yes, you do,'" Hardison, a West Sider, told us the other day about his June 5 ticket on the Red Line….
"And the other officer said, 'If you don't be quiet, we will take you to jail right now. We'll arrest you,'" Hardison said. "I let them write their citations. I felt that it was not right, but what can I do?"
Apparently City Hall is hard up and looking to extract cash from innocent bystanders. Fines are a good way to do it because, as Kass says, most people who receive a fine just grumble and pay it. Not Hardison, who instead went to a hearing to dispute the charge.
The City dropped the case today, but Hardison complains that he lost a day's wages to attend the hearing. And his friends have another theory as to why he, of all the other comatose subway riders, was picked up:
"Absolutely, absolutely, if you look at him, you might think he was homeless, a black guy with a pretty scraggily beard," Dahl said. "If it was me, a short Jewish guy, sleeping on the train, they are not going to write me a ticket."
Which would suggest that either City Hall is demanding money from homeless people or it's spending money to kick them off the subway.
The post Snooze and You Lose appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Three thousand surveillance cameras would be installed below Canal Street by the end of 2008, about two-thirds of them owned by downtown companies. Some of those are already in place. Pivoting gates would be installed at critical intersections; they would swing out to block traffic or a suspect car at the push of a button.
Yet:
There is little evidence to suggest that security cameras deter crime or terrorists, said James J. Carafano, a senior fellow for homeland security at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group in Washington.
As is customary in surveillance societies, the whole project is coming in with no public consultation whatsoever.
Julian Sanchez has looked at ever-more powerful surveillance technology; Ronald Bailey protested the total surveillance society, and Katherine Mangu-Ward has examined the extent of surveillance nation. Reason analyzed the advantages of databasification in June 2004.
The post Staring Down Terrorism appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>"A lot of women who probably wouldn't have gone to prison before are now going in for Class 4 drug felonies — the least serious felonies," Dr. LaLonde said, referring to crimes that in some instances had previously resulted in nothing more than probation.
Studies show that about 75 percent of imprisoned women across the country are mothers, most of whom had custody of their children before their incarceration.
In response to the growing number of young children with incarcerated parents, California decided to invite kids into prison with their mothers. One San Diego center that houses convicted mothers and their children is currently being investigated for neglect:
For instance, one inmate, Marsha Strickland, complained to the staff about her 5-year-old daughter's blinding headaches and constant nausea for at least six weeks before the girl was allowed a hospital visit in January, according to accounts by inmates and former staff members. The child is now living with relatives and undergoing treatment for brain cancer.
Jacob Sullum on the thousands in prison for pot here and calling out Congress on its crackbrained crack sentencing laws here.
The post Kids in Lockdown appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Jackson Police make three arrests after an undercover operation uncovers illegal sex toys at two adult bookstores on East McDowell Road in Jackson.
Police told News Channel 12 phone calls from neighbors led them to investigate Secrets Adult Bookstore and the McDowell Adult Bookstore….
The three arrested face charges of posessing sex toys with the intent to resale.
And Mississippi isn't the only state with a law against pleasure aids; it is also illegal to sell toys shaped like sexual organs in Georgia, Texas and Alabama. Of course it's one thing to have a Puritanical law. It's another to mount a whole investigation into violations of it.
Back in February Nick Gillespie had instant blog reaction when Alabama upheld its sex toy ban.
The post Mississippi Cracks Down on Pleasure appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did a study several years ago and found that when missed connections and flight cancellations are factored in, the average wait was two-thirds longer than the official statistic. That finding prompted the M.I.T. researchers to dust off their study, which they are updating now.
…
Some other airline delay statistics, meanwhile, are getting a fresh look, as well. After thousands of passengers were stranded for hours on tarmacs in New York and Texas this past winter, consumer advocates began complaining that Transportation Department data does not accurately track such meltdowns.
If a flight taxies out, sits for hours, and then taxies back in and is canceled, the delay is not recorded. Likewise, flights diverted to cities other than their destination are not figured into delay statistics.
The article suggests that one reason for worsening delays is that flights are increasingly full, which makes missing a connection far costlier than it used to be. (It misses the chance to speculate on the TSA's role.) But one aspect of flying that goes unmentioned is the ever-lengthening gap of time needed to just catch a plane in the first place. There was a time, not so long ago, when leaving one hour to get an international flight was a little risky but not unreasonable. Nowadays, it's hard to imagine security wouldn't just laugh in your face as you struggle with a multitude of shoes, belts and zip-lock bags.
Elsewhere in reason, read Julian Sanchez on the TSA's "no-fly list" and Jacob Sullum on the liquid ban.
The post Somehow the Final Connection Is(n't) Made appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>With new PM Gordon Brown on the clock, some reckon another push for the full 90 days might be coming, especially if "Terror" hits the headlines in a more serious way. Brown says no, for now—but then he's only been in power a few days, and certain "emergency" powers have already been rushed through for the Scottish police:
[Scottish police chief] Mr McKerracher said the powers had been applied for on Saturday after the car bomb attempt. Speaking at a press conference in Glasgow today, he urged the public to be tolerant of extra security measures being brought in to protect Scotland. He said: "We have applied for the authorisation to utilise stop-and-search and that is across every community in Scotland. That will be done sensitively and in situations where officers on the ground feel that is appropriate. Those powers were sought two days ago and that gives us an immediate 48 hours authorisation and then they will be confirmed by the home secretary."
Remember when the ban on liquids on planes was just a temporary "emergency" measure?
Jesse Walker blogged Blair's defeat in 2005.
The post UK Will Stand up to Terrorism (by Curbing Freedoms) appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>There have been numerous examples in the past year. A lawyer dressed in a niqab was told by an immigration judge that she could not represent a client because, he said, he could not hear her. A teacher wearing a niqab was dismissed from her school. A student who was barred from wearing a niqab took her case to the courts, and lost. In reaction, the British educational authorities are proposing a ban on the niqab in schools altogether. …
David Sexton, a columnist for The Evening Standard, wrote recently that the niqab was an affront and that Britain had been "too deferential."
"It says that all men are such brutes that if exposed to any more normally clothed women, they cannot be trusted to behave — and that all women who dress any more scantily like that are indecent," Mr. Sexton wrote. "It's abusive, a walking rejection of all our freedoms."
I can see why people find a full-face covering unnerving even if they don't support a legislative solution, but maybe we should be wary of assuming that all hijab or niqab-wearing individuals are hapless victims of self-delusion or misogynist oppression. Only a fraction of British Muslims wear them, after all, and the custom is no longer limited just to older, foreign-born women.
Nick Gillespie discusses Salman Rushdie on veils here.
More on the French headscarf ban here and here.
The post It's Creepy, So Ban It appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Australia's prime minister announced plans Thursday to ban pornography and alcohol for Aborigines in northern areas and tighten control over their welfare benefits to fight child sex abuse among them.
Some Aboriginal leaders rejected the plan as paternalistic and said the measures were discriminatory and would violate the civil rights of the country's original inhabitants. But others applauded the initiative and recommended extending the welfare restrictions to Aborigines in other parts of the country.
Who knew that ending child abuse was as simple as banning porn and booze for indigenous populations? The decision comes in response to a report tying high rates of child abuse with alcohol abuse in the same populations. That report finds that alcohol abuse was a "key factor in the collapse of aboriginal culture." Some Aborigines can think of another key factor:
The plan angered some Aboriginal leaders, who said it was the kind of government behavior that has disenfranchised Aborigines and created the problems in the first place. They also complained they had not been consulted; the government had not previously indicated it was considering such action.
The ban on pornography means that all publicly funded computers will be audited periodically. And all this requires more police, so Howard wants officers shipped over from Australia's other states.
"I'm absolutely disgusted by this patronizing government control," said Mitch, a member of a government board helping Aborigines who were taken from their parents under past assimilation laws who uses one name. "And tying drinking with welfare payments is just disgusting."
The post Child Abuse? Blame Porn appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Under the EU's new voting proposal, which aims to streamline decision-making in the now more cumbersome union, the population of a country is critical. The Kaczynski brothers, right-of-centre populists [and leaders of Poland], have argued that 20 per cent of the Polish population was killed, mainly by Nazi Germany, during the war and that this handicap should be compensated for.
"The situation still does not satisfy us," Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Prime Minister, told the Polish newspaper, Rzeczpospolita today. "We should do everything to push through our proposal or to obtain some other solution that would equally satisfy our ambitions. Either we obtain that, or there will be a veto."
The post Cemetery Civics in Poland appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The original game caused huge controvery and was blamed for the murder of 14-year-old schoolboy Stefan Pakeerah who was stabbed and beaten to death in Leicester in February 2004.
His parents believe the killer, Warren LeBlanc, 17, was inspired by the game.
Police and lawyers involved in the trial said there was no evidence that Manhunt had played a part in the murder.
The post Banned for "Unremitting Bleakness" appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Both had accepted Trojan's previous campaign, which urged condom use because of the possibility that a partner might be H.I.V.-positive, perhaps unknowingly. A 2001 report about condom advertising by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that, "Some networks draw a strong line between messages about disease prevention—which may be allowed—and those about pregnancy prevention, which may be considered controversial for religious and moral reasons."
The post Fox Rejects Humanoid Pig Condoms appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Sixty-five percent of parents say they "closely" monitor their children's media use, while just 18% say they "should do more." This may help to explain why since 1998 the proportion of parents who say they are "very" concerned that their own children are exposed to inappropriate content – while still high – has dropped, from 67% to 51% for sexual content, from 62% to 46% for violence, and from 59% to 41% for adult language.
Parents are particularly confident in monitoring their children's online activities. Nearly three out of four parents (73%) say they know "a lot" about what their kids are doing online (among all parents with children 9 or older who use the Internet at home).
But hey, a little censorship never hurts:
Two-thirds (65%) of parents say they are "very" concerned that children in this country are exposed to too much inappropriate content in the media and a similar proportion (66%) favor government regulations to limit TV content during early evening hours.
In April, Kerry Howley noted that a number parents seem to think censorship is necessary to protect other people's kids:
It's not that parents don't think media violence is benign in the abstract; when polled, they tend to express concern about its effects. It just doesn't seem to be their kids at issue. A similar dynamic seems to be at work in video game purchases. According to a recent Federal Trade Commission report (pdf), 90 percent of parents are aware of the game ratings system, and two thirds of parents always or usually agree with its determinations. Yet 40 percent of parents who know system report that they let their kids play games deemed Mature; nearly a quarter of kids named an M-rated game as a favorite.
The post Think of the Children appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Michal Stangret of Poland's Metro reports that a Polish anti-sect organization calling itself the All-Polish Committee for Defence against Sects has compiled a list of artists who allegedly "promote Satanism" through their music. The list, which will be distributed to various Polish officials in July, will likely result in the artists becoming registered and getting banned from performing in Poland.
"Until now it has been unclear which bands promote these values, and therefore the authorities, unaware of the facts, have allowed these kinds of concerts to be organized, in the process giving these bands a platform from which they could spread their dangerous message. So we decided to help them," explained Ryszard Nowak, who heads the All-Polish Committee for Defence against Sects.
The post Get Thee Censored, Satan appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Because the bill makes eligible only illegal immigrants considered high quality—high achievers with no criminal histories—the provision has supporters among even those who oppose the overall immigration package and criticize it as "amnesty."
"It is not perfect, but it is far better than some of the ways they are talking about to grant illegals new status here," said retired Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, a conservative commentator and military analyst.
The post Military Wet DREAM appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>It's hip, it's retro–and it comes at the bargain basement price of £400,000 ($790,000) in taxpayer cash. It's the London 2012 Olympic logo, unveiled last week. In among the abstract pink archipelago of shapes you might spot the year "2012." No? As Olympics organizing committee head Lord Coe explained to the BBC:
It won't be to everybody's taste immediately but it's a brand that we genuinely believe can be a hard working brand which builds on pretty much everything we said in Singapore about reaching out and engaging young people, which is where our challenge is over the next five years.
The post Olympic Heights appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Such legislation is apparently necessary because, as The Guardian reports,
Rosie Dodds of the National Childbirth Trust said: "13% of women in England and 16% in Wales have been asked to stop or made to feel uncomfortable when breastfeeding in a public place."
Private, single-sex organizations would, however, be excluded from the law:
Private clubs and associations – we do not favour preventing people setting up clubs which have membership targeted at one sex or group.
But we believe that people being treated as second class citizens when a club is open to all is not acceptable. For example, there are still golf clubs which restrict the times their female members can have access to club facilities or play during the day or bar them from being part of the running of the club.
This all-or-nothing measure would, of course, directly discourage membership reform among the most traditional private organizations. After all, why grant excluded groups partial membership at all when they would be legally obliged to demand full rights and privileges?
Sterling logic from the British government.
The post Liberation Finally Arrives in the UK appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>